The Tempest revisited

[merlocmod]

Just a brief post... having caught the matinee of The Tempest today with a couple of excellent friends, and then the Q+A afterwards... which was graciously attended by the lovely Jessie Buckley (Miranda) and Roger Allam (Prospero). ♥

This post includes spoilers for the production and for Colin's role in it.

For those interested in Colin and Ariel, I offer the following:

• Roger said that Prospero 'adores Ariel ... he loves Ariel... for all the glorious things he does for him!' (Quite, I say. Quite.)
• Roger felt that much of the play involved memory and forgetfulness. One of the audience members at the Q+A said she was very impressed by the fact that Ariel was portrayed as having genuinely forgotten about his immediate past etc, which made their early scene more meaningful and poignant, and rather less like exposition. Roger agreed, and said they'd also talked about how Ariel's sense of time would be different to Prospero's, and Ariel would live very much in the present.
• When asked about Colin, Roger said the usual things about him being great to work with and so hardworking - and cited as evidence the calluses now on Colin's hands from swinging off those handles.

I asked how they as actors approached the poetry of the play. Jessie said you certainly couldn't ignore it or fight against the poetry. She talked about thinking and feeling her way into the words by building them up as a mosaic. She talked about this a bit, using lots of visual metaphors, which I found very interesting. The actors also work with a coach who specifically helps them with delivering poetry; this is Giles Block, of the Globe. Jessie said we should all buy his new book, Speaking the Speech (here on Amazon). Roger talked about how these later plays of Shakespeare's include less formal verse than the earlier ones, which gives the actor more options in delivery. A sentence will often finish at the mid-point of a poetic line; the actor then needs to decide whether to honour the meaning or the poetry; inevitably Roger mixes this up and delivers some lines one way and some the other.

There was talk about how the relationship between actor and director is 'a conversation'.

Roger talked about other ways that The Tempest could be played, e.g. as commentary on colonial issues; with Ariel and Caliban as psychological aspects of Prospero (super-ego and id); or as meta-theatre with Prospero as a director. However, he felt that playing at The Globe demanded a return to the play itself, and not latter day interpretations or explorations of it.

Both Jessie and Roger talked about the intimate relationship between actors and audience at The Globe, and about how each performance could be influenced by the mood of the audience. Roger talked about a particular drunk groundling who seemed to think heckling was part of the whole theatrical experience; when Prospero was telling Ariel off, the audience member cried out, 'Oh, leave the poor spirit alone!' Apparently Roger STARED at him, and then 'the tabard mafia' handled the situation. {gulp}

Roger also talked about the noise from helicopters (the theatre is under a flight path) and said that one recent matinee had been like Apocalypse Now!

Much was said of the comedy in this production; perhaps the funniest Tempest anyone had ever seen!

And given the two actors at the Q+A, much was also said about the warm and loving relationship between Prospero and Miranda. Roger pointed out that the newly shipwrecked Duke of Milan wouldn't have had much previous childcare experience! They also talked about how the pair's relationship with Caliban would have been quite familial until Caliban's attempted rape of Miranda, which they supposed had happened only a year or so before.

... OK, I'm sure there was more, but it's not coming to mind just now. I'll come back and add any more details I think about!